Oprah's Nine Mysteries Every Thinking Woman Should Read

The age of the hardboiled sleuth and his bimbo sidekick is over! Here's a list from Oprah Winfrey of nine brilliant, believable female detectives.

Elegy for Eddie ($25.99) by Jacqueline Winspear

Regular customers will know that we're crazy about this whole series, starting with the first, Maisie Dobbs. The setting after WW I, the character, the situations, all of it it terrific.

Also available as an eBook

A Field of Darkness ($12.99) by Cornelia Read

The first in the series featuring Maddy Dare, a one-time debutante who now a working reporter in Syracuse, New York

Also available as an eBook

The Eyre Affair ($16) by Jasper Fforde

How to describe Fforde's series with literary detective Thursday Next? It's present-day England but the Crimean War isn't finished, time travel is routine and literature is taken very, very seriously. The plot? A villian is stealing the great characters and holding them for ransom.

Also available as an eBook

The Shanghai Moon ($14.99) by S.J. Rozan

An excellent entry in this series that features PI partners Lydia Chin and Bill Smith with each taking the leading role in alternating books. This one features Lydia in a fascinating plot that takes up back to Shanghai during the War when it was a haven for Jews fleeing Nazi Germany.

Also available as an eBook

Jane and the Canterbury Tale ($15) by Stephanie Barron

The eleventh in a delightful series in which Jane Austen is the sleuth, written in a style reminiscent of her own books.

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The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag ($15) by Alan Bradley

The second in Bradley's simply charming series with precocious sleuth Flavia DeLuce. The setting is the 1950's at the crumbling country estate of Flavia's parents and our 12 year old heroine is not about to give up the sleuthing she pursued in the earlier Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.

Also available as an eBook

The Library Paradox ($14.95) by Catherine Shaw

A delightful series with Victorian-era schoolmistress Vanessa Duncan, although by this third book she's married with children but still sleuthing.

Sun Storm ($15) by Asa Larsson

Stockholm attorney Rebecka Martinsson is the fascinating heroine in this novel that takes her back to her rural hometown, a town she left in disgrace years earlier.

Also available as an eBook

A Monstrous Regiment of Women ($15) by Laurie R. King

A brilliant second episode in King's Edgar-winning series featuring the retired Sherlock Holmes and heiress and protege (later wife) Mary Russell. This one is loaded with issues that include women's rights in and out of the home.

Also available as an eBook